Here’s an oldie but goodie. My Mom’s Marble Cake, which she would bake whenever there was leftover sour cream that was about to get the heave-ho. It’s a moist cake and she served it plain, as a snack or coffee cake. But sometimes she’d frost it with a thick, fudgy icing.

Well, I’ve read so much lately about the benefits of coconut oil, that I wanted to see if I could make various dishes using that instead of the dreaded hydrogenated vegetable shortening (coconut oil is solid at room temperature). The recipe calls for only 1/4 cup shortening so I thought it might be a good place to start.

It was. There is a definite coconut flavor to the cake (although when I served the cake no one was quire sure what that “new” flavor was). Because of that it has more of a sweet quality about it.

I also substituted non-fat plain yogurt for the sour cream.

Maybe that makes this cake a bit of a healthier snack.

But it’s the same old, same old Mom’s Marble Cake. For traditionalists, use vegetable shortening instead of the coconut oil and sour cream instead of the yogurt.

Mom’s Marble Cake with Coconut Oil

1 ounce unsweetened chocolate

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup coconut oil

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1-3/4 cups cake flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup plain yogurt (non-fat is fine)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease an 8-inch-square baking pan. Melt the chocolate and set it aside. Cream the sugar and coconut oil together in the bowl of an electric mixer set at medium for 2-3 minutes. Add the eggs and vanilla extract and beat the ingredients until well blended. Sift the flour and baking soda together. Add the flour mixture to the sugar mixture in thirds, alternating with the yogurt. Beat the mixture for 2-3 minutes to blend the ingredients thoroughly. Divide the batter in half. Mix the melted chocolate into one of the halves. Either drop blobs of alternate batters into the prepared pan or spoon in one batter, add the second and swirl it into the first. Smooth the top. Bake the cake for 30-35 minutes or until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Then invert onto a cake rack to cool completely. Eat plain or frost with fudge frosting. Makes one cake serving 8